


gilded hour

by sgt_jerk



Category: Captain America
Genre: Childhood Friends, Closeted Character, Friends to Lovers, Gay Bucky Barnes, I love my infant children, M/M, Tenderness, They're like. 14-15 here max size
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 00:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11116137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgt_jerk/pseuds/sgt_jerk
Summary: when the sun's going down on your youth, but you don't know it yet





	1. Chapter 1

_ I've always been a ladies man and I don't have to brag _

_ But I've become a mama's boy for Andrew in drag _

_ I'd sign away my trust fund, I would even sell the jag _

_ If I could spend my misspent youth with Andrew in drag _

 

The walk home had been tiresome. There were very few days after work which weren't, but the spring heat wave had been exceptionally draining after six hours trying to organize large pyramids of radishes and buckets of potatoes in the market. The tawny purples of the vegetables all blended together into a bruised mass after a while, and brown tubers began to resemble dried-up dog turds after a good long stare into their home in a burlap sack. 

"Barnes! Hey Barnes-"

Anthony Lucca was making a strong beeline towards him as he turned onto Bedford, which normally would have been fine, but in Bucky's current state only seemed exhausting. But you can't just ignore a classmate and a neighbor in the street, where everyone can see you, so he lifted his arm to wave, and fell into step next to the spindly Italian kid. 

"What's doing? Didn't see you in class the other day." Anthony barked out a laugh. 

"Nah, 'course you didn't. My ma took up half my morning for the Festa del Lavoro, made me clean out all of our old things."

"The hell is-"

"May Day, I guess. She keeps talking about how we gotta get out with the old and in with the new."

"Huh."

The two kicked gravel and pebbles down the street for a block or two, until they reached the corner. 

"You going to the fair next week?"

"Nah. I think I hafta work that day." 

"Oh c'mon. You're not gonna cut just  _ one _ day?" He shot Bucky a significant look, "Rosie's gonna be going, yanno."

It got old, being asked about work. 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"How you know?"

"Her ma was talking to my ma the other day on the corner. Were talking about how she was buying her a new dress for the season."

"How come girls get new dresses for the season, and we don't get new clothes?"

"Doesn't matter, pal!"

"I guess." He could feel himself getting distracted.

"Point is, the time to skip a day off work would be now, ya get me?" 

"Sure thing, Tony." He tried to perk up a little. It wasn't like he was avoiding asking a girl to go with him, he just wasn't particularly excited about the prospect. 

***

"Ja-aames!" His mother's head, a kerchief holding back her wiry grey hair, was sticking clear out of the window of the second floor, and he had to crane his neck back to respond.

"What, ma?" 

"Your sister's spoiled the last of the milk, go out and get some more!"

"Ma! I just ca-"

"Nuh uh, James Buchanan, I need that milk for  _ your _ supper so you're gonna go get some or you won't be having any!"

Typical. He rolled his eyes and heaved a sonorous groan, and hung his head low as was possible until he was out of sight of the second floor window. 

He wasn't too bothered, considering that Steve was probably home. He'd just take him with him. 

Bucky cornered the street behind his apartment building, taking the three flights of wooden stairs up the back. He only went only a little slower than usual, and knocked at the back window that looked out over the outside stairs. The long day had made everything tiring.

He could see a tuft of dark blonde move in the background, and a few footfalls later, the window creaked open, and Steve leaned up to the windowsill. 

"Buck, it's almost dinnertime." he said drily. 

"Hey, ask your ma if you can go for a walk with me."

He sighed exaggeratedly, sticking his tongue out.

"Okay, I guess" With a sharp grin in Bucky’s direction, he disappeared back into the dark interior of the apartment again.

Steve was always teasing him like that, Bucky observed to himself. He could never figure out why it'd started, but it's not like he ever minded. It wasn't mean, he reasoned, it was just his way.

Besides, it wasn't like he objected. 

"Alright, she's dead asleep on the couch anyway, so I figure we've got a good hour."

Buck laughed a little, but couldn't feel too good about it. His mother was having trouble, but he didn’t know what they were, and Steve would never admit to it. 

 

They meandered past the corner, down the third alley on the right, back to the Panofski's market. Steve swung his arms wide, looking carefree as anything in the fresh air. 

"Did you hear about the fair?" Bucky ventured, tentative. He could never be sure if Steve would be feeling well enough to make plans for the next day, let alone the next week. He could've decided it wasn't worth it, or-

"'Course I did. You're going, aren't you?"

Bucky tried to avoid betraying any concern on the matter. 

"Yeah, I was thinking about it." He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, palming the coins shifting around inside, "I was maybe thinking of taking someone. Y'know, for a fun thing to do."

He couldn't help but drop his gaze to the pavement, Steve's shadow dancing back and forth across the tops of his shoes.

"Huh," He snuck a look from the corner of his gaze at Steve, who was staring unwaveringly out at the laundry lines further down the street. "I'd thought you were gonna be working."

"I figured I'd just skip, y'know. I've been working every weekend since November and I already did the grocery shopping for ma this week, and-"

"You should go, it'll be fun." Steve didn't look away from his long stare into the middle distance. 

"Yeah? You going?" Bucky skirted around a shattered bottle for a moment, and moved back to Steve's side like the right side of a magnet.

The store was coming up on the corner, the door loosed in the frame and casting a grey shadow. 

Steve sighed, a slight, whistling thing. 

"Thought I would. Might not after all." The light was stretching thin and turning an orangey-yellow thru the grocer's window. 

"I'll take you. I'll need someone to be my wingman, yanno. For when I take someone." He didn’t know why the tips of his fingers felt like they were unplugged electric sockets, but they were. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endlessly helpful in writing any and all CapAm fic for me? this website:   
> http://www.1940snewyork.com/   
> Also, full credit to google dot com for assisting my Maronite-Jewish ass with Italian religious days.


	2. Chapter 2

The day of the fair came up fast, between work days and school days and chore days, always watching the younger siblings in between. Bucky hadn't actually told the boss yet, so he left a note on the door the night before scrawled on the back of some receipt paper saying that he was ever so sorry, but that his younger sister was ill and liable to spread it to the rest of his kid siblings, and that it would be highly irresponsible to bring such a sickness into a respectable workplace. Signed and dated, J. Buchanan Barnes. It was his best handwriting, which should have counted for something.

He felt guilt settle deep in his gut for all the rest of the morning, and skirted far around the shop on his weekend errands. To distract himself, he tried to figure out a convincing way to create the illusion of having asked Rosie out without actually having to do the deed. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. The notion didn't disgust him beyond all reason, he just couldn't come up with a way to justify doing it. He made the pilgrimage to and from the pharmacy in a haze of ill feeling, with the urge to get back home and stay there solidifying in the back of his brain.  
Maybe he could just dart by her house and go up the stairs and- he didn’t know where she lived. He felt a neutered flush of embarrassment at the thought of Anthony’s face if he found out.

“You ready? You were looking kinda funny just then.” Steve was peering at him under a soft-looking flop of hair.

“Yeah! Just about.” Bucky pushed his hair back, hand coming off a little sticky with pomade. “I just was thinking.”

“About what? Did your date say what time she’d be coming?” He did his best to ignore the jokey tone in Steve’s voice.

“I dunno! Just figured I’d meet her there.” There was nothing to worry about, he reasoned, and they would just have a regular afternoon out. “Rosie, I mean. I’d meet Rosie there.” Nothing to be nervous for.

  
They began to stroll down Flatbush, towards the parade grounds, easy as anything, the sun beginning its downward descent after the peak of noon sunlight. Bucky’s sweater was beginning to feel both too tight and too loose all at once, and he desperately hoped he wasn’t looking as sweaty as he felt. There wasn’t any way Steve suspected anything, did he? He would’ve told him off for fibbing, he was sure of it.

  
“Buck? I said do you know where we’re going?”

“Sure I do.” Bucky strolled as long and languorous as he could manage over to a some table hawking corn dogs. Steve cocked his head at Bucky, but stopped next to him.

“Don’t you wanna sit on the stoop?” He asked, almost gently. Bucky nodded, as if he shoulda thought of the idea first.

“Course. Can’t get our nice clothes smelling like corn dog for when Rosie comes.” He clapped Steve around the shoulder. “Good thinking.”  
Steve just rolled his eyes at him, of course, blowing his hair back out of his eyes and swatting Bucky’s hand off of his shoulder. They settled side by side in the shade of the doorway behind the shaved ice cart, the sounds of the fair blending together in the warmth of the afternoon.

“You nervous?”

“Whadda ya think?”

“...Yes?” Bucky huffed at him in response. He tried to pull his expression out of a pout, to little avail.

“Well, good thing is, if she hates you by the end of it, you’ll never have to talk to her again, if you don’t want.” Steve shrugged, still staring off into the distance of the fair.

“You sure about that?”

Steve shot him a sympathetic look.“No. But I thought it might make you feel better.”

Bucky snorted at how sheepish he looked. “Why thanks, sport.”

“No, I mean, I think you probably won’t have to talk to her again, but I can’t be sure because she’ll probably have a great time with you.”

“How’s that?”

“Well I always have a good time with you. Besides, you’re not short, and your hair doesn’t go all flat like mine.”

“You really think?”

“Course, Buck.”

He laughed, leaning back on his hands, head bumping the front door attached to the stoop. “I’m not as tall as Gregory Manzotti.”

“He’s too tall! Girls don’t like that.” Steve bumped his bicep with his shoulder, hands dusting up against one another. “You’re just right size.”

They fell silent, observing the glimmering heat coming off the black hoods of parked cars. It was only May, but the city air had lost all of the springtime feel already.

Steve was on his feet all of a sudden, staring down at him with a slight smile at the corners of his mouth, the planes of his face all pink and touched by the sun overhead. His hand stretched out to him.

“Buy me a game.”

“I was saving-”

“You can buy your pal a game. I’ll get you some watermelon later.” Steve hadn’t retracted his hand. 

He grabbed his hand, yanking himself upright from the stoop, suspended for a second too long midair. Anchored and swinging between the cement and Steve’s form.

“Alright Stevie.”

 

His hand was cool and slender, and he did not let it go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this to be a solo chapter deal, but I felt better about splitting it, so here goes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Beau for always reading my shit.


End file.
